Catching up with some 2000 Giants

— Shawn Estes hasn’t filed the paperwork, but the left-hander has retired from a career that began in 1995. In 1997 with the Giants he won 19 games and made the All-Star team.

Estes signed a minor-league deal with the Nationals this winter but was cut after pitching one inning in one exhibition.

“I decided if I couldn’t make that club, I needed to go home and be with my children,” Estes said.

— There was a Dodger at this reunion. Former third baseman Bill Mueller, who was popular among Giants fans for his blue-collar play, is a special assistant to general manager Ned Colletti. This year he and three other special assistants, including former Giant Mark Sweeney, will watch and assess Dodger minor-leaguers.

I asked Mueller if he wants to be a GM someday and he said, “No, I really don’t. I say that now, but my kids are so young. It’s hard for me to think, one, I’m going to live to 50 or 60. Right now, the main priority is being around for the kids. I’ve got a great gig being able to be still involved in the game, learning the game and somehow, some way channel that.

— Felipe Crespo, who owns two of the 50 Giants homers that landed in McCovey Cove, is working in a family construction and development business in Puerto Rico.

Crespo hit both splash homers in 2001.

“Both times the shots tied the game and eventually we lost both games,” he said.

— Remember how Barry Bonds used to have four lockers at Pac Bell when it opened? One day, Marvin Benard wanted to change things amid a slump and just took one of the three empty Bonds lockers. He didn’t just stuff his clothes in there. Benard had a cigar-store Indian carving and moved that there, too. I asked him if Bonds was mad.

“Everybody was like, ‘What are you doing? He’s going to get pissed at you.'” Benard said. “Then, he had to keep his image, so he came into the clubhouse and threw his stuff around and got all mad. Then he came out and looked at me and said, ‘Don’t worry about it, dude. It’s cool, between you and me.'”

I’ve been on this Quixotic quest to have Mark Gardner come out of retirement so he can earn his 100th win. Gardner thinks I’m an idiot.

“Will you vote me into the Hall of Fame if I get 100?” Gardner said.

That would ruin a nice piece of memorabilia that Kirk Rueter owns. Gardner earned his 99th win in relief of Rueter on the final day of the 2001 season, the day Bonds hit his 73rd home run and Gardner’s last big-league game, and gave Woody a souvenir.

“He signed my jersey after the last home game,” Rueter said. “It says, ‘Thanks for 99. Thanks more for the memories.'”

— Armando Rios is only 38 and just won the Puerto Rico winter league batting title, but he said he has no plans to make a big-league comeback.